Time to lift travel ban to Cuba

Published 6:00 pm, Monday, March 1, 2010

Having recently returned with 26 other health professionals from a trip examining Cuban health care, I would like to voice my opinion about the ban currently in place on travel to that country.

Our visit was allowed because it was professional; the federal government restricts individual travel to Cuba. It is the only nation in the entire world where our country is the restricting one. An American can travel to China, Burma, Afghanistan, even North Korea, but not to Cuba.

Established, along with the rest of the embargo, to punish the Cuban government for expropriating the private property of those who left after the revolution and to push them toward democratic reforms, the embargo and travel ban has done neither. It did nothing to change Iraq either, and it mostly hurts the population. As any parent of a rebellious teenager knows, shutting off conversation and personal contact is no way to improve their behavior; it’s the same principle we should be applying to our foreign relations.

The travel ban needs lifting also because our people need to see Cuban health care.

Looking at end results — life expectancy and infant mortality — Cuba has essentially the same outcomes as we do in the United States, but they do it spending less that $300 per capita instead of the $7,800 spent in this country. While there is much we will not accept, like their doctors making less than their cab drivers, there is much we can learn and the best way to accomplish this is by travel.

Please contact your local representative and ask him to vote, as recommended by every nation in the hemisphere and the overwhelming majority of the UN, to lift the non-working travel ban.